Nolan's Ned Kelly series off to Ireland

Ned Kelly's legend will have an Irish revival, with the loan of the National Gallery of Australia's (NGA) Sidney Nolan series to a Dublin gallery.

NGA director Ron Radford said the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) had begged to borrow the series for many years and the 26 works would travel to Ireland for display from November 2 until January next year.

"It's a bit of a wrench because we did design this gallery, which reopened two-and-a-half years ago, for the Nolan series," Mr Radford said.

"We've been reluctant to let them go because they are the most popular works in Australia and Australians come especially to the National Gallery to see them."

But it was important Australian artists were seen abroad.

"If we're going to continue to borrow works from overseas we've got to let loans go overseas as well," he said.

"I want us to be seen not just as a sporting nation or an economy, we're a culture nation and we always have been strong on visual arts and Nolan is one of our greatest artists."

Ireland's Ambassador to Australia Noel White said the series would get a warm Irish welcome with big audiences expected at the IMMA exhibition.

Mr White said Ned Kelly's story was well known in Ireland because of his Irish roots.

Ned's parents were Irish.

"The themes which are dealt with by Sidney Nolan in his works are clearly local themes, (but) they're universal themes - colonialism, dealing with justice," Mr White said.

"These are extremely important today and have traction right across a range of audiences."

Nolan, like one in three Australians, also had Irish ancestry and in 1986 gifted 50 paintings to the people of Ireland, some of which are at IMMA, he said.

Mr White said Nolan was deeply cherished by Irish audiences and there had been a major retrospective of his work there in 1973.

NGA senior curator Deborah Hart said she was very interested to see how the Kelly series translated in a different context.

"It's almost like we are taking Ned Kelly back to his forebear's country," she said.

"That's something quite special.

"The Irish are great storytellers and Nolan was a great story teller as well so I think it's a wonderful sort of meeting place through these works."

The series has previously travelled to The Met in New York and to New Zealand.

Albert Tucker's Images of Modern Evil will fill the void at the NGA while the Kelly series travels.

Dr Hart said it gave the NGA an opportunity to show another important series by an artist well connected to Nolan.

Tucker used to write to Nolan as "Dear Ned" because he had become so synonymous with Ned Kelly.